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Page 46
When the mind is set in motion, it requires a stronger exertion to
confine its movements within prescribed limits than when it is steadily
fixed on one given point. For instance, it would be easier to meditate
on the subject of patriotism, bringing before the mind every quality of
the heart and head that this virtue would have a tendency to develop,
than to take in, at one comprehensive glance,[76] the different
qualities of those several individuals who have been most remarked for
the virtue. Unless the thoughts were under strong and habitual control,
they would infallibly wander to other peculiarities of these same
individuals, unconnected with the given subject, to curious facts in
their lives, to contemporary characters, &c.; thus loitering by the
way-side in amusing, but here unprofitable reflection: for every
exercise of thought like that which I have described is only valuable in
proportion to the degree of accuracy with which we can contemplate with
one instantaneous glance, laid out upon a map as it were, those features
_only_ belonging to the given subject, and keeping out of view all
foreign ones. There is perhaps no faculty of the mind more susceptible
of evident, as it were tangible, improvement than this: besides, the
exercise of mind which it procures us is one of the highest intellectual
pleasures; you should therefore immediately and perseveringly devote
your efforts and attention to seek out the best mode of cultivating it.
Even the reading of books which require deep and continuous thought is
only a preparation for this higher exercise of the faculties--a useful,
indeed a necessary preparation, because it promotes the habit of fixing
the attention and concentrating the powers of the mind on any given
point. In assimilating the thoughts of others, however, with your own
mind and memory, the mind itself remains nearly passive; it is as the
wax that receives the impression, and must for this purpose be in a
suitable state of impressibility. In exact proportion to the
suitableness of this state are the clearness and the beauty of the
impression; but even when most true and most deep, its value is
extrinsic and foreign: it is only when the mind begins to act for itself
and weaves out of its own materials a new and native manufacture, that
the real intellectual existence can be said to commence. While,
therefore, I repeat my advice to you, to devote some portion of every
day to such reading as will require the strongest exertion of your
powers of thought, I wish, at the same time, to remind you that even
this, the highest species of _reading_, is only to be considered as a
means to an end: though productive of higher and nobler enjoyments than
the unintellectual can conceive, it is nothing more than the
stepping-stone to the genuine pleasures of pure intellect, to the
ennobling sensation of directing, controlling, and making the most
elevated use of the powers of an immortal mind.
To woman, the power of abstracted thought, and the enjoyment derived
from it, is even more valuable than to man. His path lies in active
life; and the earnest craving for excitement, for action, which is the
characteristic of all powerful natures, is in man easily satisfied: it
is satisfied in the sphere of his appointed duty; "he must go forth, and
resolutely dare." Not so the woman, whose scene of action is her quiet
home: her virtues must be passive ones; and with every qualification for
successful activity, she is often compelled to chain down her vivid
imagination to the most monotonous routine of domestic life. When she is
entirely debarred from external activity, a restlessness of nature, that
can find no other mode of indulgence, will often invent for itself
imaginary trials and imaginary difficulties: hence the petty quarrels,
the mean jealousies, which disturb the peace of many homes that might
have been tranquil and happy if the same activity of thought and feeling
had been early directed into right channels. A woman who finds real
enjoyment in the improvement of her mind will neither have time nor
inclination for tormenting her servants and her family; an avocation in
which many really affectionate and professedly religious women exhaust
those superfluous energies which, under wise direction, might have
dispensed peace and happiness instead of disturbance and annoyance. A
woman who has acquired proper control over her thoughts, and can find
enjoyment in their intellectual exercise, will have little temptation to
allow them to dwell on mean and petty grievances. That admirable Swedish
proverb, "It is better to rule your house with your head than with your
heels," will be exemplified in all her practice. Her well-regulated and
comprehensive mind (and comprehensiveness of mind is as necessary to the
skilful management of a household as to the government of an empire)
will be able to contrive such systems of domestic arrangement as will
allot exactly the suitable works at the suitable times to each member of
the establishment: no one will be over-worked, no one idle; there will
not only be a place for every thing, and every thing in its place, but
there will also be a time for every thing, and every thing will have its
allotted time. Such a system once arranged by a master-mind, and still
superintended by a steady and intelligent, but not _incessant_
inspection, raises the character of the governed as well as that of her
who governs: they are never brought into collision with each other; and
the inferior, whose manual expertness may far exceed that to which the
superior has even the capability of attaining, will nevertheless look up
with admiring respect to those powers of arrangement, and that steady
and uncapriciously-exerted authority, which so facilitate and lighten
the task of obedience and dependence. This mode of managing a household,
even if they found it possible, would of course be disliked by those
who, having no higher resources, would find the day hang heavy on their
hands unless they watched all the details of household work, and made
every action of every servant result from their own immediate
interference, instead of from an enlarged and uniformly operating
system.
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